Inuit in Shining Amour

Had this title for ages but lost it. Never happy with the one I was using, so delighted to have rediscovered this one (same story though, sorry). Dixon is a giant in his own world - powerful, used to having his own way. Torn from this environment and plunged into the unforgiving harshness of the arctic circle, he is at the mercy of nature, and the woman who rescues him...

Submitted:Jan 27, 2012
Reads: 29
Comments: 7
Likes: 3

Inuit in Shining Amour

The plane was going down, that much
was certain. If that wasn't bad enough, it was going down in the
middle of nowhere, the middle of a nowhere that was covered in
snow. Maybe that was a good thing: since there was only one
parachute between the two of them, only one of them would be
praying hard for a very soft landing.

Andrew Halal Dixon rummaged through
the litany of curses he carried inside his head. How the hell
could this be happening? How could one of the richest men in the
world be about to die? What was the point of all that money, all
that experience, if it could be rendered meaningless by one
stupid light on a panel, one stupid light telling him that one
criminally stupid person had not done his job thoroughly enough
on the ground?

The aircraft shifted from a gliding
motion towards one better described by the word plummet. So far,
his wife hadn't panicked, accustomed as she was to him being in
control, to having everything go his way. Surely he could take on
gravity, and win, as he had won every battle in his life. But now
he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, and he felt his rage diluted
with a dash of pity.

"Come on," he said. "Hold onto me."
He checked the parachute was secure on his back and pulled her
towards him, as he had pulled her towards him when she was an
eighteen year-old doll. He'd been a confident twenty-eight year
old, the world already trampled under his feet. "Hold tight," he
had said, lifting her on to the dance floor. "You're in for the
ride of your life."

They struggled, locked together,
towards the exit, and somehow he managed to get the door open and
withstand the rush of air, pulling them both to the opening and
throwing them out into space. Bracing himself for the thud of a
wing against the side of his head, he held her with hands already
protesting about the liquid nitrogen that apparently passed for
central heating this far off the ground.

"Shit," he thought, knowing he
wouldn't be able to hold her. She was already slipping away, and
he straddled her with his legs,fighting a vision of Slim Pickens riding an H
Bomb down to Earth, a vision that threatened to fill him with
hysteria.

"Hold on," he tried to scream, but
the rushing wind blew his words back down his throat. If he could
get the parachute open, without losing his grip, he knew he would
be able to see them both safely back to earth. He felt her arms
clinging tight, held her with his legs and one arm, while he
reached for the cord and jerked it away from his body.
Anticipating the combined forces of wind and gravity, he gripped
his wife as tightly as she gripped him, and they managed to stay
together while the silk billowed above them, gathering hundreds
of gallons of air, dramatically slowing their descent.

He looked down and she was looking
back at him, looking for reassurance, wanting him to smile, tell
her the worst was over and they were going to survive. He did
smile, but something was wrong. He'd spotted a rip in the fabric
of the chute, and he knew, though they were travelling at a
fraction of their previous speed, they were still travelling at a
fatal velocity. Simply put, they were inadvertently killing each
other, and, unless one of them let go, they would both, very
soon, be spread like ketchup on a slice of Mother Earth.How ironic, he thought, after all
the times he'd imagined her dead, even wished it sometimes, when
he'd found her infuriating, or simply inconvenient. Now it came
to the crunch - literally - his heart, which he and everyone who
knew him, thought had died with his umbilical cord, started to
break.

His brain had calculated the odds
the moment he noticed the rip, computed the speed they were
falling, factored in the probable inflexibility of the ground
rising to meet them, and concluded they were almost certainly
doomed. There was the snow, of course, and the angle of landing.
Both of these would vastlyincrease their chances of survival. Maybe. But
he didn't have time to consider all the variables.

This was bad. He'd killed before, of
course, but never face to face, and never someone who wasn't an
enemy. All husbands and wives are enemies some of the time, he
conceded, but not in the same way as a competitor, an embezzler,
or blackmailer. And he wasn't really killing Belinda. He was
'letting her go', as he had so many employees and partners over
the years. Decisions had to betaken, and he never had a problem with tough
decisions, even now.

He took her hands in his. God bless
her, she thought he wanted to hold them tight, and the look of
surprise on her face when he let them go, broke his heart all
over again. Not so much that he didn't push her away, as the
truth dawned and she frantically grabbed at his collar, his
jacket, his belt. She wrapped her legs around his, clinging to
life as desperately as she had clung all those years ago, when
they had strived in vain to create one. Then she was gone, and he
felt himself pulled upwards, and felt himself settle into a more
leisurely, life-sustaining, descent.

He wanted to watch her go, and, just
as powerfully, didn't want to watch. If you pointed a
gun at someone's head then looked away as you pulled the trigger,
could you convince yourself that you hadn't actually killed them?
If you left the room without a backward glance, could you sleep
that night, telling yourself all you'd done was manipulate a
metal lever: what happened next, what happened to the bullet, was
none of your doing, none of your concern?

Possibly. He glanced down but all he
saw was a torrent of snowflakes. The world was an abstract
panorama of grey and white, and he realised he would not be able
to brace himself for landing because he would have no idea
exactly when his feet would hit the floor. As the realisation hit
home, so did the ground. His legs crumpled with shocking
violence, and as he blacked out, he seemed to hear the snapping
of a gigantic branch. Then the white turned to black and he
slept.

He was wakened by the sound of
something scrabbling in the snow, and an excruciating pain
shooting up the entire right hand side of his body. His first
thought was 'Polar Bear.'

He tried to struggle out of the dark
but the pain effectively paralysed him. He cried out in agony and
panic, then a furry paw brushed his face and he screamed again,
involuntarily, thinking deep down that silence was surely his
only hope. The paw withdrew for a moment, then continued to wipe
away the snow.He blinked a
few times and tried to focus on the figure taking shape above
him. There was more fur, but not the creamy white coat of a polar
bear. This was grey, speckled black, and he immediately thought,
'Wolf.' But a wolf with gigantic paws? Andsurely a wolf would be sniffing and baring its
fangs, overwhelming him with its hot, hungry breath. He googled
hisbrain for animals likely
to eat him in the wilderness: Giant Beavers? Man-eating Mooses?
Moose? Mice? Meeces?

Aaagh! Jesus, the pain was
unbearable, and the thing hadn't even bitten him yet. Or had it?
Maybe there was more than one. Hewas delirious, and he knew it, so did that mean
he wasn't delirious? Why didn't they go and eat Belinda?
She was already dead, after all, and no doubt her flesh was a lot
more tender as well. No wonder they called animals dumb.

"Get the hell away from me," he
yelled, and flung an arm out at the beast. The beast pulled away,
and his eyes managed to focus on a face within the fur, a face
belonging to nothing more terrifying than a woman. He gasped,
then laughed with a mixture of embarrassment and relief.

"Thank God," he said, then "Ow!
Watch what you're doing!" as she leaned forward and put her
weight against his shattered leg.

She gently brushed the remaining
snow from his clothes and inspected his injuries, then she
climbed to her feet and walked a few yards to a wooden sled.
Without a word, over the next half hour, she managed to fashion
him a makeshift splint, clothe him in fur and transfer his body,
with much screaming and profanity - mostly from him - onto the
sled.

They journeyed for an indeterminate
period of time, Dixon fading in and out of consciousness. At
first, he cast anxious glances over the passing scenery, if a
never-ending expanse of snow could be described as scenery. Not
that he was interested in the stark beauty of the landscape: all
he had eyes for was the crumpled body of his late wife. Again he
was consumed by conflicting emotions: he wanted to see her, yet
she was the last thing he wanted to see, especially if she was
being devoured by rapacious penguins. An irritating little man
who had taken up residence in his head, kept suggesting that
Belinda might have survived the fall, and this also left him with
a feeling of ambivalence.

He sort of loved his wife,
he hadn't really wanted her dead, certainly not like
this. But he was a man defined by his decisions, and once a
decision was taken, he found it impossible to waste time thinking
about the ifs and buts and maybes. Thatwhole mindset was incomprehensible to him. He
believed there hadn't been a person born who didn't have
problems, so get on with it. Complaining never solved a thing.
Boo-hoo never invented a light bulb.

He watched the back of this other
woman, hunched away from him, hauling the sled on which he lay.
This was the kind of person he admired, someone who came across a
body in the snow and simply strapped it to her sled and dragged
it to safety. Magnificent. Then he passed out again.When he awoke, there was a fire
crackling beside him, and the woman was stirring something in a
tin suspended above it. He grunted and she turned her head to
face him. She was still enveloped in furs, but he could see her
eyes, sparkling brown in the firelight. They studied him,
dispassionately, and he felt momentarily uncomfortable, as though
he was being assessed by an alien being, a member of another
species, a species with different, unrecognisable, emotions. In a
way he was right, for he had often thought of himself as set
apart, someone not ruled by the same emotions and thought
processes as other humans, particularly women. That was one of
the reasons he had been so successful, in business and other
sorts of affairs.

Still, he couldn't remember looking
at anyone with the same cool detachment with which he was being
observed, and he found it slightly unsettling. He grunted again,
and nodded at the steaming tin, trusting she would understand the
query in his gesture. She did, for she turned immediately to the
pan and lifted out the wooden spoon, then held it to his lips.
Hot liquid entered his mouth and ran down his chin, but he didn't
mind. It was salty and delicious, and he didn't care if it was
boiled walrus brains, he wanted more. The woman fed him from the
tin, occasionally taking some for herself, and for a moment Dixon
felt resentment welling up inside him, but before he could
analyse his feelings, the pain in his legs reminded him that
hunger was not the only item threatening his life.

He somehow managed to sleep, how
long he didn't know, then they were off again, bouncing downhill
through the snow, bouncing off hidden ruts of ice, labouring up
slopes, thumping along on the flat, on and on, his leg throbbing,
his face stinging. He slipped in and out of consciousness,
praying when he woke that they were close to safety, but as
darkness fell again, thewoman built another fire, boiled some more
brains, and they settled in for another night.

He dreamed of voices, male voices,
celebrating, coming closer, then he was gone again as the searing
pain returned. The nexttime
he opened his eyes, he was moving, and the voices were still
there, murmuring. He was being carried, and he saw a fur-covered
figure at each corner of the sled, jogging along. He heard other
voices, farther away, growing in volume, and they were shouting
and cheering. He looked for the woman who had saved him, but
couldn't lift his head, not until they reached the voices and he
was set down on the floor.

They were in a kind of village, he
reckoned, for Eskimos or Inuits, whatever they wanted to call
themselves. Lots of them gathered round, hugging the men and
clapping them on the back. He saw the woman, then saw her
surrounded, saw her being congratulated enthusiastically,
welcomed like a hero, or someone of great popularity who had been
away a long time. Dixon had never been greeted like that, and
didn't suppose he would be when he returned from this disaster.
Not that he cared. No doubt there would be a handful of
sycophantic ass-kissers waiting to tell him who'd been trying
hardest to fill his still-warm boots, but they could all go to
hell.

The woman was being shepherded
towards one of the huts, and for a minute, Dixon was forgotten.
It did strike him as odd that his rescuer should be applauded
while he was virtually ignored, but for now his ego was a long
way second to the pain in his leg. He tried to cry out, but he
sounded so feeble and pathetic, even to himself, he quickly gave
up. It didn't matter, for four other men came and lifted the sled
and carried him to the centre of the camp. He could feel the heat
of a great fire, even before they set him down, and he welcomed
the warmth.

Children gathered round and stared
at him with curiosity, and the same unsettling ambivalence the
woman had showed him earlier. There was something familiar in
their faces, and Dixon realised it was an expression he'd seen on
photographs of other children, children on another continent,
children of another race. These were the pathetic, and apparently
apathetic, faces of children who had given up hope. But why would
these children bear such a resemblance to children who were
starving? There was no drought here, for certain. These people
didn't rely on crops fortheir food. There had to be fish, seals,
seabirds, even Polar Bears. And walrus brains; don't forget the
walrus brains.

His own brain was racing, confused
by the pain, confused by the faces of these strange, alien
people. He didn't understand. He'd bought into all the global
warming stuff, or climate change, orwhatever they were calling it now, even made
another fortune out of carbon credits and wind farms. He'd been
well placed to cash in on the recycling surge, collecting stuff
they said he couldn't put in landfills, then shipping it to
landfills in China and Brazil.

No one told him about starving
Eskimos. Or Inuits. Or anyone else. Still, that wasn't his
problem. Maybe he'd look into it when he got back home. Who knew,
there may be something he could do to help, and if they were
sitting over lakes of oil and gas, maybe they'd show their
gratitude with some cheap mining permits. Who knew? That kind of
luck had always managed to find him in the past, so why not
now?

He heard another commotion, and when
he turned his head, he thought he'd gone delirious. People were
arguing about something, something on a table, something pink.
Some of them pointed at the pink thing, then pointed at him.
There was a man at the centre of the arguments, holding a knife,
and dressed in an apron, a bit like a surgeon. They were surely
telling him Dixon was injured, he needed urgent help.

And now things were moving fast. The
arguments stopped and the men moved towards him. The women,
meanwhile, surrounded the pink thing and started to cover it in
furs. The pink thing moved, then stood. Dixon craned his neck,
but the men were in the way, and the pain riveted up his spine,
so he lay flat on his back as they surrounded him and began
removing the furs the woman had lent him, and then his
clothes.

"Whoa, stop," he cried out, in
between the screams as they banged against his splintered shin.
He looked for the surgeon guy, the one with the knife. Surely he
would understand the pain he was in, and order the others to
treat him gently, but Dixon couldn't see him. There were too many
people crowding round and his head felt fuzzy.

"Please," he heard himself say, as
though he were watching from a long way off. "Stop it,
please."

He must have retained some of his
old authority, for the men stepped back, the hands stopped
grasping at him and he was able to grab some of his clothing and
cover his indignity. He noticed a heavy silence had descended, as
though a fresh fall of snow had enveloped the village, then the
man in the apron stepped forwardand issued some orders. Five or six men lifted
Dixon into the air and carried him across the village. "At last,"
he thought. "Now we're getting somewhere.

He turned his head and saw children
staring up at him, children with sad eyes, with hungry eyes, with
eyes still bereft of hope. Maybe he could help them, when he got
home. Maybe he could get one of his secretaries to set up a
trust, build them a school. He could name it after Belinda, yes?
Or a hospital. God, they could do with one, it looked like they
were going to deal with his injuries out here in the open, over
there, on the table where the pink thing had been, before the
women hurried it away. And now they were setting him down on the
rough, makeshift table, and this was better, because he could
feel the warmth from a nearby fire, and hear it crackle as the
pine logs burnt. Hands removed his last shreds of clothing, and
more hands massaged his flesh, warming him, soothing him, rubbing
in some kind of grease, and he looked and he saw Belinda,
watching him from a bundle of furs.

Surely not? He knew people had
survived worse plane crashes than theirs, even without parachutes
and snow. There was a teenage girl, he remembered, when a jet
crashed in Peru, who walked for 9 days through the jungle and
survived. And Hugh Glass, the man left in the wilderness 1800's,
in a situation very similar to his own, and he survived.
But Belinda?

Again he stretched to see, but
gentle hands restrained him, the massage continued, the silence
persisted. He didn't feel good all of a sudden. Not that he'd
been feeling great before, but now he felt woozy. Maybe he'd lost
more blood than he thought. When he looked down at his body, he
had the curious feeling that he was looking up, as
though his feet were above his head. Something warm tickled his
neck and then his ears, and he tried to tuck in his chin, to see
what it was, but all he could see was red. Then Belinda was
beside him, and her eyes were a mixture of anger and pity, and
pain, and he tried to speak but found he was unable. He wanted to
ask her what was happening, and she must have read his mind
because she bent down and spoke close to his ear.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you
for saving me."

He didn't know what she meant, and
he couldn't snap at her this time, couldn't argue with her,
because he was incapable ofspeech. He looked frantically into her eyes,
pleading with her, desperately searching for answers. If she
wanted to believe he had saved her, when in fact he had kicked
her away in mid-air, simply to save himself, well fine; there was
nothing to be gained by correcting her. But he was sure there was
something else. The bitterness in her voice was not the
expression of someone on the receiving end of the biggest favour
one person could give to another. She bent forward again.

"Not when we fell from the plane,"
she said. "I know what you did then." She looked into his eyes
and he felt the pieces of his broken heart trying to crawl back
together inside his chest. "I forgive you," she said. "Who knows,
if you'd held onto me, we both might have died. I would have
missed the snowbank that saved me, I would have missed the
hunting party that found me and brought me here. You might have
missed the woman that found you and brought you here.
And here we are," she said, "together again."

"So how did I save you?"

Dixon couldn't tell if the words
came out or not, he was sinking fast into a warm, dark ocean, but
he heard Belinda's answer, even felt her soft warm breath as she
whispered in his ear.

"These poor people," she said.
"These poor, starving people. They've waited so long, and they
wanted to wait a little longer." She glanced away, then
spoke quietly to him. "The supplies will be here the day after
tomorrow," she said. "Just think. But the children, Andrew? The
children are dying. And the old ones…They just wouldn't make
it."

"No!" he screamed inside his head.
"Belinda, please..!"

"Thank you," she said again. "And
don't worry; I will wait for the supplies…"

Andrew fought to the end, but some
things you just can't fight. If it had been drugs sending him
deep into oblivion, he may have had a chance, for people have
fought the effects of all kinds of drugs, and won. Some people
stay awake through complicated, painful operations, though very
few have chosen to do so. Mystics and Yogis have been known to
withstand tremendous extremes of cold and heat, without incurring
any damage. But no one has ever conquered what Dixon raged ever
more weakly against now, which was the loss of almost all his
blood.

As the man in the apron anxiously
hovered over him, as the last few pints trickled from his severed
arteries and into the bucket beneath him, Dixon's final thoughts
registered dimly, somewhere far away on the everlasting plane of
his fading consciousness.

"What a waste," he thought, and,
finally; "…Well they can forget that goddamn hospital…"